Metropolitan Urban Sprawl and Mobility: Core City Estimation of Financial Losses due to Commuting

Podjęta problematyka sytuuje artykuł w nurcie badań nad kosztami niekontrolowanej suburbanizacji w Polsce. Celem artykułu jest próba oszacowania strat z tytułu dojazdów mieszkańców do pracy do miasta rdzeniowego. Obliczenia przeprowadzono dla Krakowskiego Obszaru Metropolitalnego. Wskazano, że straty społeczne z tytułu dojazdów do pracy są wysokie i przekraczają 400 mln zł rocznie. Straty te są konsekwencją niefunkcjonalnego układu drogowego będącego pochodną chaotycznej struktury przestrzennej wywołanej urban sprawl.The subject of the article situates the research in the field of the costs of uncontrolled suburbanisation. The purpose of the article is an attempt to estimate the losses from commuting residents to a workplace in the core city. The calculations were carried out for the Cracow Metropolitan Area, Poland. It was pointed out that social losses from commuting to work are high and exceed PLN 400 million annually. These losses are a consequence of a non-functional road system being a derivative of the chaotic spatial structure caused by urban sprawl

Why Companies Go Private in Emerging Markets? Evidence from Poland

In recent years the number of going private transactions has sharply increased in emerging markets. The purpose of this study is to establish the financial characteristics of companies that have gone private using a dataset comprising of Polish companies. We use a probit model to distinguish the difference between firms that went private and companies that did not. We find that the probability of going private grew with a rise in the concentration of foreign ownership, an increase in the relative level of free cash flows, a decrease in the level of long term debt, and a decrease in the liquidity of share trading. The results obtained are important both for investors wishing to identify entities characterized by a high likelihood of going private and for governmental authorities evaluating the methods and rationality of privatization mature state- owned enterprises.Going Private, free cash flow, information asymmetry, ownership structure, emerging markets

Dynamic mesh refinement for discrete models of jet electro-hydrodynamics

Nowadays, several models of unidimensional fluid jets exploit discrete element methods. In some cases, as for models aiming at describing the electrospinning nanofabrication process of polymer fibers, discrete element methods suffer a non constant resolution of the jet representation. We develop a dynamic mesh-refinement method for the numerical study of the electro-hydrodynamic behavior of charged jets using discrete element methods. To this purpose, we import ideas and techniques from the string method originally developed in the framework of free-energy landscape simulations. The mesh-refined discrete element method is demonstrated for the case of electrospinning applications.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures in Journal of Computational Science, 201

From urban social activism to urban social movements

W artykule przeanalizowano proces tworzenia miejskich ruchów społecznych w Polsce. W pierwszej części autor przedstawił krótki historyczny rys kształtowania się europejskich miejskich ruchów społecznych oraz zmiany strukturalne, jakim są one obecnie poddawane. Drugą część poświęcono specyfice miejskiego aktywizmu w Polsce. Autor przeanalizował procesy, w których ramach rozproszony miejski aktywizm skutkiem wewnętrznej integracji ewaluował w kierunku miejskiego ruchu społecznego, reprezentowanego między innymi przez takie organizacje, jak Kongres Ruchów Miejskich czy koalicja wyborcza Porozumienie Ruchów Miejskich.The article concerns the problem of the processes of the formation and development of Polish urban social movements. In the first part of the article, the author analyses historical background of urban social movements in Europe and structural changes among contemporary social movements. The second part is devoted to the specificity of social activism in Polish cites. The author analyses the transformation processes of dispersed urban social activism into urban social movement, represented by such organization as the Congress of Urban Movements as well as the electoral coalition: the Alliance of Urban Movements

Urban spatial policy and its impact on open areas – Płock case study

Spatial planning has to be carried out in accordance with the sustainable development principle. When compiling every document indicated in the Spatial Planning and Development Act, local authorities have to take into account the conditions that are valid in a gmina. They should rely on available materials which are a support for the decisions that are made. An element that constitutes support for local authorities is spatial data available in international sources, e.g. the European Environmental Agency or individual sources, e.g. vector versions of the documents in the scope of spatial planning. The purpose of the article is to present which materials used by local governments can allow for an appropriate assessment of the need for new areas of housing development and the limitation of decisions concerning the liquidation of open areas in cities. The article presents tools and data which constitute a basis for an evidence-based spatial planning policy and have to be used by local authorities. The procedure presented in the article can be a tool supporting the spatial policy and an element of evaluation whether the decisions made by local authorities are correct

Estimating total factor productivity in a generalized cost system

A description of two ways of adding an equation for total factor productivity to the generalized cost system of Atkinson and Halvorsen; includes a discussion of testing for regulatory biases.Electric utilities ; Industrial policy

Comparison of Spectral Radiance Calibration Techniques Used for Backscatter Ultraviolet Satellite Instruments

Methods for determining the absolute radiometric calibration sensitivities of backscatter ultraviolet (BUV) satellite instruments are compared as part of an effort to minimize pre-launch calibration errors. An internally illuminated integrating sphere source has been used for the Shuttle Solar BUV (SSBUV), Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS), Ozone Mapping Instrument (OMI), and Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment 2 (GOME-2) using standardized procedures traceable to national standards. These sphere-based sensitivities agree to within three percent [k equals 2] relative to calibrations performed using an external diffuser illuminated by standard irradiance sources, the customary radiance calibration method for BUV instruments. The uncertainty for these calibration techniques as implemented at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Centers Radiometric Calibration and Development Laboratory is shown to be 4 percent at 250nm [k equals 2] when using a single traceable calibration standard. Significant reduction in the uncertainty of nearly 1 percent is demonstrated when multiple calibration standards are used

Wpływ prokościelnych grup interesu na ustawodawstwo. Casus regulacji antyaborcyjnych w Sejmie VIII kadencji

The main goal of the articule is to analyze the influence of pro-church interest groups on the proces of anti-abortion legislation in Poland. The text refers to initiatives in the polish parliament of 8 th cadence. The autor analized: role of Catholic Church in the politycal system of Poland; methods of its influence on this system; the concept of pro-church interest groups; their typology; drafts laws regarding abortion; methods by which pro-life groups expressed their postulates during attempts to legislate anti-abortion. These groups are an instrument of the Church's influence on the political system. In order to introduce anti-abortion legislation, the pro-life groups refer to various methods: lobbying, persuasion and moral sanctions.Zasadniczym celem artykułu jest omówienie wpływu prokościelnych grup interesu na proces stanowienia ustawodawstwa antyaborcyjnego w Polsce. Tekst odnosi się do inicjatyw podjętych w Sejmie VIII kadencji. Zanalizowano: rolę Kościoła katolickiego w systemie politycznym Polski; metody jego oddziaływania na ów system; pojęcie prokościelnych grup interesu; ich typologię; projekty ustaw dotyczących aborcji w Sejmie VIII kadencji; metody, jakimi grupy pro-life wyrażały swoje postulaty w trakcie prób stanowienia ustawodawstwa antyaborcyjnego. Grupy te są instrumentem wpływu Kościoła na system polityczny. W celu wprowadzenia ustawodawstwa antyaborcyjnego grupy obrońców życia odwołują się do różnych metod: lobbingu, zabiegów perswazyjnych i sankcji moralnych